


Le Défi

by hazelandglasz



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cooking, Fluff, M/M, Top Chef
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-06
Updated: 2014-03-06
Packaged: 2018-01-14 20:31:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1278004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelandglasz/pseuds/hazelandglasz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Knittywriter won the 3rd place of my give-away, and asked for a fic where Kurt & Blaine are Norbert & Jean!!! (Either on Le Defi or on Top Chef — you pick)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Le Défi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [knittywriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knittywriter/gifts).



> For those of you who don’t know about them, Norbert and Jean are two French cooks who were respectively the winner and the runner-up for Top Chef France in 2012, who are as different as two chefs can be and became best friends in the process, only to come back on our screens with a concept that I will reveal in the fic  
> From best friends to lovers, well - Klaine took that step ;)

Blaine Anderson had entered Chef Robuchon’s kitchen at the prim age of 14, and has learned his craft with the man who is considered as the best chef, the best cook around the world.

As far as Blaine is concerned, he doesn’t need the title of Top Chef to prove to everybody that he’s a good chef - he knows it, he can see it in his clients’ faces and in the emptiness and near immaculate state of the plates when they come back to him. But being on national television would definitely bring the Chicagoan restaurant more visibility and thus more clients.

Besides, he knows that he has charisma to boot, and he loves sharing the knowledge Chef Robuchon shared so generously with him all these years ago.

As he looks at the other candidates, he recognizes some of them, from Joel’s kitchen and because the cooking world is not that big a world.

But there is one man that stands apart from the others, one man that Blaine doesn’t recognize, laughing with Pastry chef Mercedes Jones, but there is something in his eyes that tells Blaine that this man is not here to have fun.

"Chefs!" Tom Colicchio calls and they all turn from whatever they’re doing to face the chef and producer of the show. "Welcome to Top Chef - I can’t believe we’ve reached our 15th season!"

They all laugh at that, and Blaine’s eyes drift to the unnamed chef. He’s shaking his head, making his reddish hair swipe across his forehead, and as he rearranges them in one move that makes Blaine jealous, the young chef finally recognizes him.

Kurt Hummel. Self-taught. Brilliant. Exuberant. Genius.

And apparently gorgeous, but Blaine doesn’t think it has any impact on his cooking skills.

Does it ?

——

In all honesty, Kurt didn’t think they would even cast him for the show.

but apparently, he has a quirky personality that makes the audience just love him. this may have something to do with the way he’s not as stuck up about the way he uses his ingredients, his tools, his strength as the rest of the contestants.

Kurt honestly thought that he would get to show how talented one can be when one is dedicated enough, that one doesn’t need to be a commis to be a chef, and that with sweat and sheer motivation, with Cuisine running in their veins, it is possible to become a great chef.

But to be a finalist? No, never in his wildest dreams.

And to share the final with Blaine is a treat in itself. Kurt can’t stop himself from laughing at random moments, whenever his eyes catch Blaine’s across the kitchen and for the first time in the history of the show, the final is not about backstabbing and diminishing the other finalist’s work.

Quite the contrary, the two chefs can’t praise their competition enough, be it in front of each other or on the sidelines.

Without knowing it, they both say that if they have to be jealous of anyone, it’s the jury because they get to eat the other’s cooking.

In the end, though, Blaine’s classical training and whimsical setting gets him the grand prize.

But they both know two things, as they hug each other with tearful smiles.

One, Blaine may have won the title, but Kurt is clearly the fan favorite.

Two, this is not the end of their adventure.

—-

Five months after the end of the competition, Kurt receives a message from Blaine.

"Be prepaaaaaared."

Yes he totally reads that in Scar’s voice and he giggles before typing his answer.

"What’s going on you big loon?"

"Bravo’s back for us."

That gets Kurt’s attention and he turns the fire off from under his pan to call his friend.

His best friend that he might be thinking about just a little bit too much and in definitely inappropriate settings.

"What do you mean?" he asks in lieu of greetings, throwing his rag over his shoulder. Blaine laughs in his ear, clear and breathy and Kurt can feel his lips stretching into a smile.

"Just — check your e-mail and call me back, Knife wonder."

Kurt chuckles at the nickname and leaps at the opportunity to talk with Blaine. “Are you — are you in town?”

"Yep - that was going to be my second text but you beat me to it," Blaine replies, "I’m starving."

"Come here, Blaineclopedia," Kurt retorts and Blaine’s giggles fill his ear. "I’ll feed you."

"Aw, you would, snookums?"

Kurt scoffs and hangs up, only to hear a knock on the backdoor.

Blaine is looking at him with his best innocent look and Kurt puts a fist on his hip. “Snookum, really?”

—-

The network’s idea is not entirely ridiculous, Blaine thinks as he explains the concept to Kurt.

Who has never looked more beautiful in the heat of the kitchen, Blaine might add in the privacy of his mind.

The concept is simple : take the winner of the show and the winner of the fan favorite award, put them together to cook in the audience’s kitchens, with crazy challenges and funny ideas and voilà !

"Cook impossible challenges?" Kurt repeats as he flips an omelette without even looking at the pan, all of his attention on Blaine who is munching on the parmesan and olives crackers he made earlier for the Apéritif he serves. "I like it."

"I knew you would," Blaine says softly, "and it would be fun to show that cooking doesn’t require expensive ingredients and first class tools-"

"Though we both know that good tools are awesome to work with," Kurt interjects and Blaine gives him a pointed look.

”- and that we are in fact the most important tools.”

A moment of silence reigns on the kitchen before Kurt has to lean against the sink to laugh properly without falling down.

"Oh shut up," Blaine mumbles, pressing the heel of his feet against the back of Kurt’s thigh as he bends over in his laughter.

When Kurt looks over his shoulder, there is a very pretty blush on Blaine’s face, but he decides that it must be the embarrassment of his poorly chosen words.

"Ok, I’m in", Kurt finally says as they eat the eggy goodness directly in the pan. Blaine looks up from the piece he cut with a little knife and Kurt is momentarily stunned silence by the beauty of Blaine’s eyes.

Makes him want to bake and cook caramel for more than one purpose.

"Really?" Blaine asks, an hesitant smile on his face as he drops the knife to walk around the counter and pull Kurt in a hug. "That’s so, so great, it’s going to be so much fun - and we’ll keep the restaurants opened, I already negotiated that for us."

Kurt pulls a bit away, keeping his hands on Blaine’s waist. “You did?”

As Blaine nods, Kurt blinks at him. “Aw, Snookum, you shouldn’t have.”

Blaine scoffs but pulls him back into the hug, and really, how is Kurt supposed to resist a true Chef Anderson hug?

—-

Some of the challenges are fun.

Some are stupid, but the two of them are unstoppable, and they manage to make them entertaining.

And some are … challenging. Like the one they’re facing this week.

"Bonjour, Kurt et Blaine!"

The two chefs exchange a look - a French-speaking demand?

"My name is Laura, and I have lived in France for … enough years to develop a real taste for French cuisine, the real meal that we never find here, even in French restaurants."

Blaine’s eyebrows reach for his hairline and Kurt smothers a laugh. There are so many French dishes that no chef would ever attempt to export into the U.S.!

"Unfortunately," Laura continues on their little screen, "my family doesn’t share my love for, oh, I don’t know …," she trails off, but there is a little smile on her face that doesn’t sound too good for the two friends.

With reason.

"Sweetbreads, frog legs or snails!"

"Oh shit," Blaine breathes and Kurt turns to look at him with a frown.

But before he can ask Blaine what exactly made him lose his cool, Laura announces the challenge.

"Kurt and Blaine, your challenge, if you accept it, is to make my family love a full meal made of typically French dishes!"

"Oh putain," the two men say in stereo before laughing nervously.

"Now you’re talking," Blaine says, arms crossed over his chest as his brain starts filing through the possibilities. "Now that’s a challenge worthy of us!"

Kurt twists his mouth as Laura waves them off with a smile and a cheery “Good luck”.

"The problem is not going to cook - those are recipes we could do with our eyes closed and only one hand available," he starts, and Blaine nods (he has done a Porto and cream "ris de veau" with only one hand). "It’s to make sure that by the end of the meal, her family can’t have enough offals."

Blaine smirks and tilts his head toward Kurt, a sparkle in his eyes. “It’s all about the way we present them, that’s all!”

"All in the outfit?" Kurt teases and Blaine winks.

"Exactement, mon cher!" he exclaims, before looking at the camera. "Laura, you gave us a challenge, and we’re all about winning it! Allons-y!"

—-

Laura smiles at them and kisses their cheeks when they arrive - well, when they invade her kitchen, and they quickly explain their plan.

"First, we’re going to transform the snails,” Kurt starts. “We know that not many people want to try it : it’s viscous, it’s slimy and it doesn’t really look appealing.”

"Ok," she says slowly, "not going for the easiest one I see!"

Blaine pulls the cleaned snails from a bag, and starts showing Laura how to prepare them, cutting them in little pieces. “Now, we’re just going to cook them in butter and minced parsley, you’re with me?”

"Oui chef!"

"Kurt, can you get us a beurre noisette?"

"Yes dear," Kurt calls, melting the butter until it reaches a golden, almost brown color.

Blaine is blushing just a little bit, but Kurt blames the heat of the kitchen.

Laura stands next to Kurt to see what it entails exactly, and Blaine finishes to chop the parsley and the snails.

Blaine knows that Kurt has a passion for the beurre noisette - if he was a religious man, Kurt would pray to beurre noisette three times a day, cooking fishes and meat and vegetables in it.

Blaine comes on Kurt’s other side to throw the mix in the pan, and like a rehearsed ballet, Kurt moves just enough to give him some room without bumping into Laura nor letting go of the pan.

"Look at it," Kurt says, his voice taking a dreamy quality - as it always does when Kurt speaks about Food - "we want to get them almost caramelized. Bichon," he says, turning to Blaine and using his favorite nickname, "you tell me when to take them off."

Blaine is definitely blushing now, and Kurt is getting a feeling that it has nothing to do with the heat.

The one in the kitchen anyway.

Taking the pan from Kurt’s hand, Blaine moves quickly and efficiently, pouring the whole content of the pan into a plate of absorbing paper. “Smell that, and tell me that it’s not already making you hungry,” he says, looking proudly at Laura. Sure enough, the smell of butter and parsley and something vaguely fishy fills the kitchen and Laura licks her lips.

To enhance the taste of it, Kurt starts preparing a garlic-infused cream, showing their hostess how to remove the sprout from the clove to remove the acidity. Blaine observes how gentle he is, showing her the moves they spent years practicing, and he tries, God knows that Blaine tries not to picture Kurt showing him some other moves that they could spend years practicing on each other.

He tries - his effort should be rewarded. And the way Kurt uses that plunging blender is NOT helping, Goddammit!

Blaine focuses on the mandolin as he slices the potatoes, barely reacting when Laura comes to his side to see what he’s doing.

"See," he explains, "we’re going to turn the snails into a mille-feuilles. But there is already enough butter in the snails, without the addition of a buttered dough. So, we’re going to use slices of potatoes to make the layers of the mille-feuilles. Delicious," he continues, "and it has the benefit of hiding the snails."

"Sneaky," Laura says and Blaine laughs, taking another potato and quickly slicing through it.

"That’s me, I guess," he replies, watching Kurt smile privately from the corner of his eye.

—-

While Blaine and Laura cut the potatoes and start arranging the layers, Kurt prepares their next meal, keeping an eye on the pair.

The way Blaine, classically trained - and rigorously so -, manages to be gentle in his teaching, the way his eyes turn the shade of a perfect caramel or an unattainable beurre noisette when he explains what a trick they’re going to play on Laura’s family to make them see that French cuisine can be delicious …

How could he not fall in love with the man?

—-

"Pig ears and foot?" Laura screeches, an unbelieving smile on her face nonetheless, "that’s a bit strong, don’t you think?"

Kurt and Blaine exchange a look, each holding a pig’s feet in their hands. “Go big or go home!” they exclaim in synch, exchanging a very disturbing high … two.

"Come with me," Kurt says, picking up the feet left by Blaine as he moves out of their way, "we’re going to bone that thing."

Blaine turns his head just in time to see that Kurt’s eyes are not on the work surface but on himself and he smirks as discretely as he can.

"Keep the fat - fat is good, I love me some fat," Kurt explains, back to his task and showing what he means to the young woman, "and go ahead, the animal is already dead," he adds with a laugh, peeling the meat from the bone with precise moves - precise but definitely not graceful ones.

"The trick is to heat the piece a little beforehand," Blaine says, leaning over the table. He knows that it puts his ass on display, but after all, didn’t Kurt just say that he loves "fat"?

Oh, Blaine is man enough to be proud of his body, and gay enough to know that his ass is his biggest strength.

Then Kurt pulls out his knife, and Blaine’s eyes widen. Kurt didn’t get his nickname for his vast collection of knives, but for his impressive knife work - skill and fluidity, all wrapped up in a very, frighteningly fast package.

Kurt minces the meat and soon enough, it’s hard to tell that it comes from the animal’s foot.

Not one to back out from a challenge, Blaine picks up a large onion to mince it too, and Laura’s eyes travel from one cutting board to the other with a wide smile.

Kurt swoops in, picking up the onion and pressing a fleeting kiss to Blaine’s cheek. “First we cook the onions,” he explains to Laura while Blaine is stunned into place, “and we deglaze with some sherry vinegar, to get an acidity.”

As Laura looks and sniffs around - a good sign that she’ll do it in the future - Kurt continues. “Cider vinegar is good too - actually I should have done it with cider vinegar, apple with pig is such an awesome combination !”

Blaine files that information for another time - no, he is not planning a date with Kurt with maybe a rôti de porc with apple sauce and roasted turnips - and pulls the bag of fresh herbs from the bag to make sure that Kurt can take it without any problem with the camera crew.

"And now that the vinegar has evaporated," Kurt lists off, "we add the meat - look, it’s like sliced bacon or something - and my favorite ingredient after butter -"

Laura cuts him mid-sentence. “Ah, I’ve watched the show, I know what it is! Tarragon!”

"Indeed!" Kurt exclaims, pulling the green leaves out of the bag like a magician. "You can also use sage, if you want, but since I’m in charge, tarragon it is!"

"God it’s so beautiful," Kurt whispers as he lets the chopped leaves infuse in the pan, "smell that, isn’t it divine?"

His voice turns into a repressed moan in the end of his sentence, and Blaine swallows. Picking two spoons from his apron, Kurt picks a little of the content of the pan and offers them to Laura and Blaine.

"Taste it, and tell me that offals don’t deserve to be cooked."

Blaine takes it and happily chews : it’s delicious, meaty and just a little fatty, with the freshness of the tarragon to give a kick in the end, along the acidity of the vinegar.

He’s the one moaning and Kurt is the one blushing. To cover his pink face, he pulls the mold from the bag and starts building his plate.

"This is going to be eaten cold, like a terrine of sort," he explains, layering the cooked pig inside a rectangular cutter and covering it with a piece of board and a pack of butter on top. "Hop, in the fridge," he continues, putting the whole construction he made, "at least one hour."

"To make sure that it stays homogeneous when you remove the cutter," Blaine explains and Laura nods. "Meanwhile, we’ll take care of the ears."

Blaine picks up a couple of pig’s ears. “Just like for the snails, we’re going to disguise them to make them delicious looking and completely hidden.”

Picking up a circular cutter, Blaine uses all of his upper strength to cut through the ear. “We’re going to make what we call un cuir croustillant, a crispy leather.”

"And do you have to aim at a certain part of the ear?" Laura nods with a twist of her mouth, and Kurt intervenes.

"No, that’s the beauty of it!" he exclaims, "Everything is edible in the pig."

"Tout est bon dans le cochon," Blaine repeats in French under his breath as he pushes through the leather of the ear, and Kurt huffs a laugh.

Blaine puts the circles he obtained in a pan, and explains how to cook them to a crisp, to put in the plate next to the piece of terrine, with a couple of asparagus barely cooked.

"See, this way you’ll have a variety of textures, tastes and acidity levels," he tells Laura and Kurt nodds enthusiastically behind him.

"You don’t want to have something linear," he adds, "you want an harmony of elements that don’t necessarily match but complement each other."

Blaine looks away from the pan and from Laura to look at Kurt.

This … describes them perfectly.

They’re not the same … element, one could say, the two of them shouldn’t even have crossed path, but here they are, and they complement each other in oh so many ways.

Why hasn’t Blaine talked to Kurt about his feelings? About his want to see if they complement each other in other places than in a kitchen ?

It feels like his eyes had been veiled up til now, that he’s finally seeing what was in front of him all this time.

—-

Sitting in Laura’s office, the two cooks watch the tasting on a little screen, sitting next to each other and their legs and arms brushing every now and then.

It has always been like this, but in the wake of his recent self-epiphany, Blaine feels every inch of skin where he’s in contact with Kurt.

"God, I’m so nervous," Kurt whispers, crossing his arms, and Blaine pats his knee almost on reflex.

"It’s going to be fine," he whispers back just as Laura brings the plate with the terrine and the crispy ear on the table.

"Your plate is so pretty," Kurt says, eyes fixed on the screen, "you have to show me how you do that sometime."

"I’d love to," Blaine replies honestly.

As Laura’s husband and children devour the content of their plates with happy sounds and smiles, Kurt punches the air and pulls Blaine in a hug.

"We did it my friend!" he says enthusiastically, and Blaine puts his arms around his waist, burying his nose in the crook of Kurt’s neck.

"We did it," he repeats, and there must be something different in his voice or in the way he touches Kurt, because Kurt slowly pulls away and looks at him carefully, a calculating expression on his face.

"Blaine, I-" Kurt starts, but Blaine opens his mouth before Kurt can say anything else.

"Kurt, I have to admit, this is the strangest thing I’ve ever said, but watching you cook, today, it made me realize how deeply you move me."

Blaine takes a deep breath, his fingers tightening on Kurt’s waist. “You move me constantly, Kurt, and I hope we can keep cooking for a long time forward - cooking and, maybe, other things?”

"Other things such as?"Kurt asks, but his voice is teasing all the way, and Blaine’s only response is to tilt his head. "Oh, Blaine," he continues softly, pulling one arm away from Blaine’s neck to brush his temple, "time to get the plate out of the oven."

"Whu?"

"Shut up and kiss me, mon bonbon."


End file.
